Neri&Hu Design and Research Office Situated near Slender West Lake, the twenty-room boutique hotel site presented special conditions. The design task was to adaptively reuse several old buildings for new functions while adding new buildings to meet the hotel’s capacity.
To unify the scattered elements, we overlaid a grid of walls and paths across the site, tying the entire project together. This organization creates multiple courtyard enclosures that establish hierarchy, frame views of the landscape, and create overlaps between interior and exterior experiences.
Built with reclaimed brick, the narrow interior passageways stretch into long perspectives. Light playing across the various brick patterns entices guests to explore the buildings further. Within the walls, guest rooms are clearly separated from the enclosing walls, ensuring privacy while offering small slices of landscape to enjoy. As guests journey along the walls, they ascend through openings above to reach privileged vantage points over the gridded landscape and the lake beyond.
The design ambition lies in the strong utilization of walls and courtyards as landscape elements to unify a complex site and program. At the same time, the rustic materiality and layered spatial experience seek to redefine tradition with a modern architectural language.

Neri&Hu Design and Research Office, founded in 2006 by partners Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu, is an interdisciplinary architectural design practice based in Shanghai. The practice’s burgeoning global portfolio includes commissions ranging from master planning and architecture to interior design, installation, furniture, product, branding, and graphic design.